1.Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a surrounding monitor apparatus for a vehicle which causes a camera to pick the image of a blind spot where a field of view is shielded from a driver seat of a vehicle and makes a driver recognize the surrounding of the vehicle by a display screen for displaying a video image and, more particularly, to a surrounding monitor apparatus for making a driver intuitively recognize the image pickup direction of a video image when video images having image pickup directions are displayed on one screen.
2. Description of the Related Art
When a vehicle running on an alley along which a driver cannot see far ahead will go out into a main road, the driver may not check both ways until the vehicle advances to a position where the front end of the vehicle is stuck into the forward road. In this case, when a CCD camera is attached to the front bumper of the vehicle end, and left and right situations on the road are displayed on a display device in the vehicle room as a video image, the driver can check the left and right situations on the road until the driver moves the vehicle to the position where the driver can directly visually check the left and right situations.
As an apparatus proposed on the basis of the above consideration, there is an apparatus shown in FIG. 1. CCD cameras 101 and 201 for picking up the images of left and right forward blind spots are arranged on both the side surfaces of the front bumper of a vehicle. The CCD camera 101 arranged on the left side of the bumper and the CCD camera 201 arranged on the right side are connected to an image synthesizing device 66 through camera drivers 102 and 202 to output pickup video images.
In the image synthesizing device 66, the two left and right pickup video images are arranged to be synthesized with each other as one video image. The synthesized video image is output to a display control device 68 together with navigation information or a television (TV) image. This display control device 68 selects one from the video image, the navigation information, and the television image by a switch signal or a vehicle speed signal, and outputs and displays the selected image or information to and on a display device 70. The switch signal is a signal of a switch operated when display screens are switched. The vehicle speed signal performs an operation of automatically switching a present display to a navigation information display when a vehicle speed reaches a predetermined value, and when a monitor video image is not necessary.
By arranging the apparatus on a vehicle, for example, as shown in FIG. 2, even in road situations that a road is surrounded by walls, that a field of view is shielded, that far ahead cannot be seen, and that visual check cannot be made, when the front end of a vehicle (own vehicle) 50 is slightly stuck into the forward road, the left and right sides are set within an image pickup range to be subjected to an image pickup operation. In the display device, for example, a pickup image as shown in FIG. 3 is displayed. A track T is displayed on the left of the display image, and a man M is displayed on the right, so that the road situations can be checked.
However, since, in the above image display, video images picked up at the left and right fronts are arranged to be displayed on one screen, the images are not impressed as images picked up in the left and right directions. It is disadvantageously difficult to intuitively position an object or a man on the basis of the image.
This embodiment has been made in consideration of the problem and, has as its object to provide a surrounding monitor apparatus for a vehicle in which a feeling of direction is given to a display video image.
According to one aspect of the present invention, there is provided a surrounding monitor apparatus for a vehicle, comprising: an image pickup device for picking up images in a plurality of different directions from a vehicle; an image forming device for forming a trimming video image picked up by the image pickup device and including mask regions having the shapes of vehicle windows corresponding to the plurality of directions and a vehicle image; an image synthesizing device for overlapping the trimming video image and the vehicle image formed by the image forming device on the plurality of video images picked up by the image pickup device to form a synthesized image; and a display device for displaying the synthesized image from the image synthesizing device.